Thin Place
When I was a kid, hide and seek was the game of choice and the church was the ideal arena. As a pastor’s kid, I spent as many hours in the Lord’s house as my own house. Hide and seek was a great way to make the time pass when all the adults were doing adult things like choir practice and committee meetings. The old church building of my youth was full of classrooms, closets, and endless corridors that confused even the most seasoned pastor’s kid. I still get a chill thinking about some of those pitch-black closets full of Sunday School supplies accumulating since The Depression. I think Moses’ robe was literally in there!
Sometimes life still feels like a game of hide and seek. Walking along dimly lit hallways, opening doors with half anticipation and half anxiety, not knowing quite what to expect on the other side. And being totally frank, the most frustrating of all are those times it feels like I’m playing hide and seek with God and He’s the one hiding. It’s a challenge to step out in faith and it’s disappointing when the result is a ghosting by God.
This has been a season of fervently seeking God. It’s led me to pursue faith and a desire to better understand its essence. There’s something about faith that’s so simple yet profoundly difficult. Something so pleasing to God, He’s designated it to be the perfect arena for an experiential relationship. That is what my heart craves. A dynamic relationship with God, by which all else is defined.
Faith is the doorway to those thin places in life where earth and heaven merge; places where God’s presence is undeniably strong. Moments in time I can feel His hand reach down and shake the top of my head like a father to his young son. A reassuring reminder that He’s with me and proud of me. Thin places, uninhibited from distraction, where my life gains clarity and focus in the presence of my Father. No games, just surrender.
Thin places are always available but arriving there can be a struggle. I can bring my sin, my shame, my fears, my dreams; but I can’t bring my independence, my plans, my safety-nets, my ego. It’s taken me a long time to understand this but when I’m playing hide and seek with God, it’s not God I’m looking for and it’s not God whose hiding. It’s my god I’m looking for and my god that’s hiding. The God has become a means to an end to obtain something other and that other is never the shiny prize it appears to be.
By faith, I choose to claw my way into the thin space despite the things of this world relentlessly whispering my name to return. To achieve nothing less than positioning myself fully exposed before God. Not a means to an end, just God. There’s nowhere to compare. His presence is a consuming fire.